


For The Damaged Coda

by StainedGlassDreams



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Tales of Suspense, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Love, Tales of Suspense - Freeform, bit of Clintasha, buckynat - Freeform, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-03 20:00:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12755178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StainedGlassDreams/pseuds/StainedGlassDreams
Summary: What happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force, and somewhere in the middle, the one thing that keeps both of them the way they are?





	1. Bucky

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this post: http://maxiekat.tumblr.com/post/167608261526/tales-of-suspense-the-healing-begins
> 
> And this cover of Blonde Redhead's "For The Damaged Coda": https://youtu.be/8d5N0rkzxyU

Bucky touched the keys, smooth ivory tinkling under his hands. There's something familiar in it, an answer he's been searching for, for what seems like months now.  
He doesn't really remember where he first heard it, just that he knows it. Every note is a chip against a stone he knows has the answer, something he can't reach. Or maybe it's just that it feels like her.

"Cut the melodrama, Barnes."  
Bucky stopped playing, now staring at Barton, who was staring up at the ceiling, a crumpled paper ball tossing up and down in the air. Bandaged nose to match Bucky's bruised back and taped up patch of calf.  
"What?"  
"Oh, finally got your attention. You've been playing that damn piano for forever a day." He said casually, tossing up it into the air again.  
Bucky was about to say something, before exhaustion stopped him, instead releasing a sigh that weighed just a fraction of how he felt. "...It's been a long day. Can we not-"  
"Nope, really can't." Barton swung his legs over, sitting up now as he hid a groan. "Why do you keep lying?"  
Bucky stayed silent, choosing the higher road, though his jaw clenched. They'd been at it for a few days, but tonight seemed off.  
"Seriously. Ever since we 'teamed up'- no, fuck that. Since Arlington. You've been putting up this, 'I don't care if I die' crap. Taking chances, doing everything but jumping in front of a car."  
"What's your point?"  
"Should be clear." He stood up. "Why do you keep lying?"  
Bucky's eyes were growing increasingly darker, his patience wearing down. "What the fuck is your problem?"  
"My problem is you. You say you care, you say you're doing this for her, but you're lying." He walked up to Bucky, who's posture was now screaming death. "If you really gave a damn about Natasha, the way she said you did. You wouldn't put up this bullshit screen. You aren't good to either of us dead."  
"Who says-"  
"You really don't think anyone kept tabs on you? On both of us? The NSA doesn't have shit on Fury, Barnes. You've been begging for it since Nobokov."  
"Shut up."  
"Thunderbolts, Man on the Wall, goddamn, Matt was right. You're just some asshole who gave up-"

Bucky did a sweep kick that Clint dodged, as he punched him with his right fist. Clint blocked as he went for his chest, then getting his side. "Come on Barnes, what the fuck are you hiding?"  
He missed the punch as Clint hit near his calf, pinning Bucky down.  
"I'M THE ONE WHO DIDN'T GET THERE IN TIME." Bucky yelled angrily, simultaneously feeling like all the grief he had been holding since this mission had just been regurgitated.  
Clint looked at him coolly, though he swore he saw him freeze for a moment. "And I'm the one who needs to tell you that's bullshit." He let Bucky up, as the latter looked confused, still slightly winded. "No one can be there 24/7. You know it, I know it. Natasha can handle herself. Better than either of the messes we are. And I get it. I get the whole pity thing. It's like self sacrificing dick came in the package with your DNA. But this isn't on you." He extended his arm out to Bucky, pausing before he took the offer. "As much a Rom-com plot as this is, I need you on this, much as you need me. And for that to work, it's gotta be 100%. You with me on that?"  
Bucky stared at him contemplatively, a part of him confused. "....Yeah. Got it."  
"Great." He went back to lying down, before Bucky started to walk toward the motel bedroom.  
"You know-" Clint added.  
Bucky stopped, expecting another tirade.  
"....she thought it was her fault too." Clint said this, paper ball still on the table, his voice suddenly more serious, the permanent sarcastic tone gone as the temperature seemed to change. "The day we thought you died, she changed. She took chances, risks." He paused. "It wasn't your fault. I couldn't knock sense into her because as much as I respect her, as much as she respects me- for whatever reason. ...I felt like a part of her died the moment she thought you had."  
The AC in the room had grown both softer and louder, the only sound in the room.  
"I'm knocking sense into you, because I can't find her alone. Neither can you. If you really love her, really? You need to start caring. Because two self sacrificing people don't do anything. It just causes 'em both to be dead."  
Bucky stared into the cheap carpet fibers before finally feeling like he could move. "Night, Clint."  
Another moment passed. "Night, Buck."


	2. Clint

Japan hustled outside. All beautiful neon like in the movies; beautiful town, beautiful food, beautiful women.

The piano plays softly in the background, for the 75th time.

But instead he's stuck here; in a crap motel on the outskirts of Tokyo, where the attendant looks like a Yakuza caricature, with Barnes.  
He looks up at him from his moderately comfortable spot on the sofa, bruised ribs, broken nose and all. He misses Lucky.

He honestly hasn't seen Barnes for....It had to be years. The last time was... He finds himself chuckling. It was these exact circumstances. Finding the one thing that makes either of them decent people, only this time she isn't brainwashed, she isn't in trouble (when has she ever been?) and it isn't official.  
Like a bad fever dream, they're chasing a ghost. One everyone tells them isn't real, a diagnosis for some quack to help take away. But what if neither of them want to?  
He throws the paper ball up in the air, made up of a crumpled sushi joint menu that was tossed underneath the doors of everyone here. The one Barnes actually took to the light of the lamp and gently pressed on before tossing it aside. Much as hates to admit it, it's ingenious.  
_"I might've wanted that." He said to him casually before flopping on this hellhole of a sofa._  
_Barnes didn't even look at him before he gingerly changed, new fresh bruises on his back. "You want sushi from a place called 'Taboo you'?_  
_"Yeah, why the fuck not? Need something to take the pain off my ribs, why not my stomach?"_

Obviously, no emotional response.

Tossed it up again. Barnes is practically an enigma, and he gets it. Where he masks everything with sarcasm and occasional Peter Pan foolishness, he doesn't recall seeing Barnes smile in years (knows when he does, it's beside Natasha and as much as it hurts, it's respectable.). He masks the pretty fucked up amount of pain with a shield.  
Tosses the paper again.  
Kinda funny. Maybe it came with the job. He played Cap once, and it didn't... He missed being Prince purple and flexible. There's a weight that comes with being Steve Rogers ghost, and it's one he, nor Castle, couldn't do. Much as he hates to admit it, Barnes wore it well, maybe because he took care of actual Rogers for so long.  
It rotates in the air for a bit, as he tries to manipulate the angles for magician effects.  
It's a weight. Like that necklace thingy in Harry Potter; a piece of impossible metal that changes you. Combine that, with Barnes' already fucked up pasts (plural.), grief and you get this.

 _"Don't move or a shitty alleyway is gonna be the last thing you see." He keeps his arrow at him._  
_The man stills._  
_"Why're you here."_  
_His posture suddenly changed, as if relaxing slightly. _"Same reason you are."__  
_It took him a few moments to lower his bow at the shock of seeing Barnes, dressed in hobo camo, waiting for a shot of the same ghost he'd been waiting for._  
Ever since, they'd been hopping from place to place, a transportable map on the wall crazy looking enough to fit in "Memento", trying to prove Natasha was alive.  
And it was since that moment he's known Barnes... Isn't the same.

His fighting style reminds him of Natasha's, which reminds him of his own, but the difference now is there's a dark edge to it. He isn't watching himself as much and the fact he could sneak up on him back in that Moscow backalley is a fact that's been biting at his brain.  
The real 'Captain America' wouldn't have gotten a knife to the calf.  
It keeps bringing him back to the last time he saw Natasha, on a rooftop before she 'died'. There was a change in her the moment she heard Barnes had been blown away by the kid. The same dark edge he keeps seeing in Barnes now, like a part of her had gone with him.

 _She stood on the rooftop, prepping. "Don't." He asked._  
_"And let a Nazi burn the world?"_  
_"You know that's not what I mean."_  
_She paused briefly before returning to gear ready._  
_"I know what losing him meant."_  
_"I don't know what you're talking about."_  
_"You really think you can out-bullshit me?"_  
_She looks over at him, a ferocity there that's immediately replaced by understanding._  
_"He wouldn't want you to do this."_  
_"No, I suppose not." She finished. "But he isn't here to help me stop it." She stopped, turning to him._  
_"Don't ask me to be a heartbroken bastard by myself."_  
_She left her hand on his cheek, and it felt too final. "Help me and you won't have to."_

Okay, enough of drama theater. "Cut the melodrama, Barnes." It tumbles out, frustration and pent up grief being poured into the annoyance of the same keys over and over.  
He stopped playing, as he felt him staring at him. "What?"  
"Oh, finally got your attention. You've been playing that damn piano for forever a day." He said casually, tossing the paper ball in the air to balance himself. He thought he had had the last word before he heard Barnes release a sigh that was heavier than gravity.  
"...It's been a long day. Can we not-"  
"Nope, really can't." He swung his legs over, immediately regretting the decision, now mounting against regretting the decision of starting this in the first place. "Why do you keep lying?" Aaand, now regretting that. Logic in the voice of Kate, screaming at him. "Seriously. Ever since we 'teamed up'- no, fuck that. Since Arlington. You've been putting up this, 'I don't care if I die' crap. Taking chances, doing everything but jumping in front of a car."  
"What's your point?"  
Well fuck it, might as well go all the way. "Should be clear." He stood up, knowing it would instigate the fight or flight response Barnes has been holding back on. "Why do you keep lying?"  
His eyes became darker, a peek into what he's been holding back. "What the fuck is your problem?" His tone wanting to avoid confrontation. But it's what he needs.  
"My problem is you. You say you care, you say you're doing this for her, but you're lying." His leg ached as he walked up to him, Barnes' posture changing. "If you really gave a damn about Natasha, the way she said you did. You wouldn't put up this bullshit screen. You aren't good to either of us dead."  
"Who says-"  
"You really don't think anyone kept tabs on you? On both of us? The NSA doesn't have shit on Fury, Barnes. You've been begging for it since Nobokov." That part was true.

He'd been in meetings where the man's name was dropped more times than an MC. It was followed by either "I don't know where he is" or, "Probably still following Tasha." This was followed by silent cuss words.

"Shut up." He was touching on that nerve, which was an already lit fuse frozen in time.  
"Thunderbolts, Man on the Wall, goddamn, Matt was right. You're just some asshole who gave up-"  
Bucky finally cracked, as he did a sweep kick that Clint dodged, and punching with his right fist, which was a mercy play that irritated him.  
Clint blocked as Bucky went for his chest, then getting his side. "Come on Barnes, what the fuck are you hiding?"  
The blind anger he know would get him off guard happening, as he missed the too easy punch, Clint taking revenge for the mercy play by hitting near his stupid ass injury on his calf. pinning him down.  
"Come on, tell me."  
"I'M THE ONE WHO DIDN'T GET THERE IN TIME." Barnes raised his voice, the guilt tumbling out in his voice, and burning out of his eyes. He heard Sam once say "He's got something. The man can play poker because you can't stare at his eyes too long." He always thought that was the gayest thing he'd ever heard. Up close, he found out it was true.  
Looking down at Barnes' eyes, the only thing he could look at, is like looking space. There's light as much as there is darkness, swirling around together. And he has to stop, because they look...  
"And I'm the one who needs to tell you that's bullshit." He lets him up, both to finish it, and give himself a breather from what looked too much like Nat's eyes. The same ones he saw on those lonely nights, multiple missions and the private realms of either of their rooms.  
"No one can be there 24/7. You know it, I know it. Natasha can handle herself. Better than either of the messes we are. And I get it. I get the whole pity thing. It's like self sacrificing dick came in the package with your DNA. But this isn't on you." He extended his arm out to Bucky, some understanding there. "As much a Rom-com plot as this is, I need you on this, much as you need me. And for that to work, it's gotta be 100%. Got it?"  
Bucky stared at him with confused as fuck eyes, bordering on realization what the whole thing was meant to be. "....Yeah. Got it."  
"Great." He lumbered back over to the couch, as his back screamed profanity at him.

And that's where it should have ended. But no. There's this annoying blinking in the back of his mind that woke up the second he saw those eyes again. The thing he couldn't say that day, blinded by respect and hope. "You know-"  
He heard Bucky stop, his turn in the bed.  
"...She thought it was her fault too." It tumbled out.

 _He overheard Sam tell it. "I'm sorry."_  
_She walked out of the room, and it looked like she was in slow motion, her hair hid her right side of her face, and he knew why._  
_Minutes felt like days before he found her in the living room of the hideout, coffee mug filled to the brim, even though he could smell the vodka in it._  
_He sat beside her, her eyes far away._  
_"I'm sorry."_  
_She didn't reply._  
_They both don't deal with grief well, shuffle it to the side like a cold or a flu._  
_He took her hand. "Come on. Let's do something."_  
_"No."_  
_"You need to get it out."_  
_She stood up. "There isn't anything to get out."_  
_"Don't be like me."_  
_She paused, looking at him. More decades passed, those eyes that have seen too much staring at him. "No one can be dumb as you."_  
_"I know." He replied, as she began to walk toward him._  
_They embraced, as she felt her chest hitch the slightest bit. "It's gonna be okay."_  
_A minute passed before she whispered, to him or the air she thought was Barnes' ghost, "I should have been there."_

He didn't pick up the paper ball back. "The day we thought you died, she changed. She took chances, risks." The rooftop came back as he swatted it away. "It wasn't your fault. I couldn't knock sense into her because as much as I respect her, as much as she respects me- for whatever reason. ...I felt like a part of her died the moment she thought you had." The AC in the room had suddenly grown both softer and louder, the only sound in the room. "I'm knocking sense into you, because I can't find her alone. Neither can you. If you really love her, really? You need to start caring. Because two self sacrificing people don't do anything. It just causes 'em both to be dead." He had to stop himself from adding Natasha's name, suppressing it.

And for the first time, Barnes looked like himself. That lost kid who thought he should shoulder the weight of the world. He stared into the cheap carpet fibers. "Night Clint." He stopped, as he realized neither of them has actually ever said the other's name, this entire trip.  
Another moment passed. "Night Buck."

**Author's Note:**

> As always, Thank You so much for reading :)


End file.
